Olympus Stylus 780 Digital Camera Announced

Olympus did announce two additions to their Stylus line back in February, but managed to save one for the PMA show that starts this week. The Olympus Stylus 780 brings several new features and technologies to the Stylus line. The 7.1 megapixel Stylus 780 will be available in silver and black sometime in May 2007 for $349.

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The top features of the Stylus 780 are dual image stabilization, new Shadow Adjustment Technology, Perfect Shot Preview, and a new processor, the TruePic III. It also has a 2.5 inch HyperCrystal LCD (230K pixels) with Bright Capture Technology and a 5x optical zoom lens.

Shadow Adjustment Technology is a new feature for Olympus and the 780 is the first camera to get it. With this technology, the camera does a better job of providing a greater dynamic range when you have shots that have brightly lit areas and full shadow areas. The Shadow Adjustment Technology preserves the detail in the shadow. Along with Face Detection AF and AE, the Shadow Adjustment Technology can properly exposure the faces in your picture in tough lighting conditions.

Perfect Shot Preview lets you view any changes to the camera settings before you capture the picture. Olympus sees this as a way for beginning photographers to see the effect of various settings on their shots.

Like the rest of the Stylus line, this Stylus 780 is weatherproof. Rubber gaskets and seals keep out the stray splash of water or the random speck of dust flying around.

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The Stylus 780 also includes Olympus’ Bright Capture Technology that aids when shooting in low light. You can preview the image of a dimly lit scene in the LCD and the camera can shoot at sensitivities up to ISO 2500 when you want to use ambient light to capture the shot. The camera also has illuminated buttons that can help while shooting in the dark.

There are 23 shooting modes on the Stylus 780, including several preset scene modes. A built-in Guide system, exclusive to Olympus, can guide the beginning photographer through the steps needed to capture the shot that they want.

The Stylus 780 is powered by a lithium-ion rechargeable battery and accepts xD-Picture Card memory cards, up to 2GB.